This reminded me of the good old days, John.
He pressed Enter on the laptop keyboard, and the card reader plugged into the port blinked with a blue light.
"Give me the suspect's name, Parisa."
Rain traced patterns down the floor-to-ceiling window, deep blue light streaming across the right side of Hastings' face.
"Vitomira Lončar, one of the elders of the 'Croats,' founder of the Modern Industrial Museum Theatre. According to reliable assets on the ground, she owns a villa near Jefferson Square in the Free Republic of Liberland—that mad utopian project on the Danube."
He opened the intercepted comms in the portal, slid the cursor to copy the suspect's thirteenth alias, and ran it against the TIDE database entries for wanted records. A single field came back unmatched.
"Lončar employs large numbers of former local warlord militias to guard her private compounds, launders bitcoins through e-commerce fraud to expand her assets, and operates under the alias Vita as the middle link in 'HushMan's' transaction chains. She likely has indirect access to the intel network and possesses means to reach the upper echelons of 'HushMan.'"
A fresh "baseball card"—the internal format used in the Disposition Matrix—had just arrived. It laid out in plain text Vitomira Loncar's photograph, biography, suspected locations, associates, affiliations… though biometric collection in the basic profile remained limited.
Risk tier: Tier 1 association: "HushMan" transnational criminal network. Lethal action: locate and neutralize. Executed by Gray Horse team.
"Reusing the old unit name—won't that raise suspicions upstairs?"
"'Gray Horse' is a perfectly plausible designation for any special operations detachment; any elite team recruited from special forces can call itself Gray Horse without drawing attention. Besides, the task force records are officially sealed. What was that phrase again? Dead men tell no tales."
"Sometimes that's a blessing."
"High-level authorization will save us a lot of headaches, but you'll need to start thinking about postponing that retirement, Anonymous."
John Hastings wiped his lips with his left hand and zoomed in on the suspect's photo in the dossier. His eyes locked onto her facial features; a twitch at the corner of his eye flashed with anger, a vein bulging on his forehead.
"Yes. That's her."
He scrolled the mouse wheel to the next image in the dense file. There they were: the private security detail captured in false-color surveillance footage. PSCs—he recognized them instantly. Using VHS-2s and DMR rifles for show, backed by a handful of smuggled AK-103s from gray-market sources.
"She's an actress, John. A very good one."
Another report from a local asset detailed Vitomira Lončar's recent movements. Under the guise of cross-border travel for theater engagements, she met with global nodes of "HushMan," using appearances at affiliated theaters as cover for intelligence protection and to expand underground influence around the venues.
"That type excels at playing both the heavy and the innocent, climbing the ladder through shameless maneuvering—but she might just be all facade. Neutralizing her shouldn't be too difficult."
He minimized the portal window. John Hastings opened a browser and typed the theater's name into the search bar. Sure enough, a suitable window appeared in the official results.
The cursor hovered over the brief entry: December 31, New Year's Ballet Gala. Founder Vitomira Lončar in attendance.
"Plenty of time, Parisa."
He closed the laptop, slid out the golden SD card holding the portal key from the reader.
"By the way—is your armory still stocked?"
"I know a place."
John shut the computer and ended the call on speakerphone.